Well the PGMO have been saving him for a special occasion this season and this match is it!

Referee – Martin Atkinson Age 46 and still FIFA accredited (but that is to lapse in January I believe due to his age).

Assistant Referee 1 – Stephen Child From Kent and FIFA accredited

Assistant Referee 2 – Adam Nunn From Wiltshire

Fourth Official – Stuart Attwell Age 34 from Warwickshire

This is the first time this year that we will have the “pleasure” of Mr Atkinson in charge of one of our matches. I had hoped that we would be spared this dubious honour completely this year as I regard him as one of the least competent referees in the game as regards delivering a balanced handling of a game. I still haven’t got over this incident from last season which wasn’t even called a foul. Alonso leads with his arm and knocks out Bellerin.

The clearest example of a foul involving excessive force you will ever see. Bellerin is out cold before Alonso makes any contact with the ball. Should be a red card and the ‘goal’ shouldn’t have stood. Mr Atkinson has a clear view of the incident and sees nothing wrong with it at all. Not surprisingly Chelsea went on to win the game. Would the result have been different with Chelsea having to play with 10 men for the rest of the game – certainly.

Of course this is not to say that Mr Atkinson is deliberated biased – because of the hyper secrecy surrounding all that PGMO do we don’t know if he is biased or simply not very good. But it seems to be one or the other.

In addition to the Chelsea game already mentioned Mr Atkinson was in charge for three other matches last season

Sunderland v Arsenal 29 October (1 – 4) 60.7% weighted score, bias against the two teams of 10/90 and six wrong Important Decisions all against Arsenal.

Min12 Rodwell should have had a red card for an elbow on Coquelin,

Min33 N’Dong was wrongly given a yellow card for a foul on Coquelin – he too should have had a red card,

Min 41 Pienaar was given a yellow card for a foul on Coquelin but it should have been a second yellow (he should have got one in Min 26 for a trip on Alexis),

Min 62 Kone should have been given a second yellow card for a foul on Alexis in the penalty area.

Mr Atkinson didn’t award the penalty either and in Min 74 Jamujaj should have had a red card for a high foot which caught Coquelin on the head. We won the game but Mr Atkinson allowed all sorts of thuggery from Sunderland.

Man City v Arsenal 18 December (2 – 1) 65.7% overall score, bias against the two teams of 8/92 and four wrong Important Decisions all against Arsenal – something of a pattern developing here but of course this could just be a coincidence.

Min 47 Sane was offside when City ‘scored” City’s first goal which shouldn’t have counted.

Min 80 De Brune should have had a red card for a flying tackle from behind on Gabriel,

Min 90+4 Sterling should have had a second yellow card for an arm to the back of Bellerin’s head and Touré should have had a second yellow card for deliberate time wasting delaying the restart.

The incorrectly awarded goal certainly cost Arsenal one point, maybe more. The linesman who failed to flag the offside goal was Adam Nunn one of three ‘flaggable’ offences he got wrong that day, he also failed to flag Walcott offside in Min32 and wrongly flagged Sagna offside in Min60.

Arsenal v West Ham 9 August (0 – 2) 54% overall score, bias against the two teams of 100/0 and three wrong Important Decisions.

Min 37 Tomkins should have had a second yellow card for a foul on Monreal,

Min43 West Ham scored from a wrongly awarded ‘phantom foul’ adjudged to be committed by Ramsey – there was no foul so no free kick and hence no goal.

Min 62 Drinkwater should have had a second yellow card for a dive which was bought by the referee who awarded West Ham afoul against Giroud. The destination of the points were certainly decided by Mr Atkinson in this game although whether he is just consistently bad we can’t say.

Was Mr Atkinson any better in 2014-15? In a word No – we had him three times

Chelsea v Arsenal 5 October (2 – 0) 45% overall score, bias against the two teams of 14/86. He made six wrong Important Decisions

Min 20 Cahill should have had a red card for a foul on Alexis and in a separate off the ball incident Ivanoviv should have had a red card for an elbow on Özil,

Min 43 Alexis should have had a red card for a punch on Inanovic,

Min 62 Arsenal should have had a penalty for a handball by Fabregas, Min 90 Alexis should have had a red card for a foul on Fabregas. Another game where Mr Atkinson decided who was going to win the match and bent the rules accordingly.

Arsenal v QPR 26 December (2 – 1) 70% overall score and bias against the two teams of 87/13. He made six wrong Important Decisions (five against Arsenal what a surprise)

Min 23 Onuoha wrapped himself round Giroud like a coat and pulled him to the ground – no penalty to Arsenal.

Min52 Ferdinand grabbed Giroud by the neck and should have had a second yellow card.

Min 75 Fer should have given away a penalty for a foul on Mertesacker (I guess sub rule 8B applied – ‘unless an Arsenal Player is involved”), and to add insult to injury two minutes later in

Min 77 QPR were awarded a penalty when Debuchy cleared the ball cleanly and Hoilett went down. The subsequent ‘goal’ scored from the penalty spot shouldn’t have counted either. The one wrong Important Decision against Arsenal was in Min90 when Gibbs should have been sent off for a foul on Zamora. Another game where the awful refereeing failed to prevent Arsenal winning but it was a close run thing.

There is no point in going back further because it doesn’t get any prettier

Summary

Mr Atkinson might appear to be very biased, but of course we can’t read his mind, so we can’t say why. It is just that all our investigations suggest that…

Mr Atkinson is a piss poor referee when it comes to Arsenal – he appears to ignore thuggery against our players but will penalise us for the slightest infringement. He actually goes as far as to invent fouls against our players to gift opportunities to our opponents.

There is no chance of Arsenal being awarded a penalty and every chance of one being given to Liverpool

Mr Atkinson is not helped by PGMO. If only they were an open organisation which would engage in debate about accuracy levels rather than quote their 98% accuracy claim, we could get some insights into Mr Atkinson.

Liverpool will be allowed to foul our players with impunity

Some people will call Mr Atkinson is a cheat. We don’t because we don’t have the data, but the data we do have suggests that something can be seriously out of kilter when he referees.

The bias figures in the 8 games quoted above are all 84% or higher against Arsenal with two at 100%. These figures prove that

Mr Atkinson isn’t delivering a performance at the level that would be commensurate with what one might reasonably expect in a top professional league

Arsenal will need all the help they can get from the crowd for this match. We will have to make up for the fact that

Mr Atkinson might not quite get everything correct, but might get more things wrong for one side than the other. Or as the headline says, “Arghhhhhhh”.

Anyone remember whether Arsenal or Unitied were punished after the pizzagate incident at Old Trafford?

Apparently FA ha decided not to punish Man City or Utd for the recent post match fracas. The same decision was taken when Tottenham and Chelsea players brawled last year. Is the FA being consistent and fair to all teams including Arsenal? Just curious.

I like untold’s articles, you really tell us the untold especially about arsenal.
However I really wonder whether there is any one referree who is okay for arsenal marches because every referree seems to be not good for arsenal marches.

Tony I have read some of the untold referree team reports, however if I consider most of the martches where arsenal is defeated; games against teams like man u, bayern,Barcelona,man c,Liverpool where our players seem to be afraid and end up making mistakes that cost arsenal. I think there is something players and manager have to work on

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